Ivy homes in currently operational in Bangalore.

We purchase 2, 3 and 4 BHK homes in selected societies across Bangalore.

Ivy homes solves the time value of money problem by offering instant liquidity for your house. Ivy homes is your assured home-buyer - you sell today, avoiding the wait time, guesswork, and the hassle of finding buyers.

Ivy homes was founded in 2021 by Abhilash Narahari (IIT Kharagpur, 2012) and Pritam Thakur (IIT Kanpur, 2014). Ivy Homes operates out of Hara Chambers in Shanti Nagar, Bangalore. A YCombinator Winter of 2021 company, Ivy Homes is backed by Khosla Ventures, Venture Highway, Foundamental and other marquee names in the venture capital space. Abhilash and Pritam have now set a team up with 75+ folks from across diverse sectors, attempting to make a significant change through the deployment of technology intelligently in the real estate space.

Put simply, Ivy Homes has two avatars - one is that of an investor - where we simply buy and sell flats. The second is that of a service provider - where we execute practically the same things we do in the other business model, but we practically share profits with a seller instead of buying and selling, like in the traditional sense.

This draws, honestly, from the values of the company itself. When we started Ivy Homes, we decided to build something that would stand the test of time, built on the principles of trust and transparency - something we found to be sorely lacking in the real estate space. We then figured that the only way to do this is going by facts and not hearsay. We’re not sure you’re aware, but the Karnataka government has made the last 14-15 years of transaction data into public information. We have painstakingly built the hardware and software it takes to get all this information, actual documents, under one roof. It is modelling further, on top of these documents, that we are able to figure out where ‘market’ is for an as-is where-is home in a community, and where we should sell to actually generate a premium.

We actually buy at market, add value through renovation, legal diligence and sorting title out, post which we are able to sell at a premium. We make it a point to buy at market, which is also the reason we source and sell homes across the city today. The added sweetener is we are able to do all of this while offering a significant advance payment upfront as well, which is unlike any regular buyer in the market, thus adding significant value to buyer and seller alike. The final icing on the cake is, we get all of this done at practically 3 times better speed than regular market, which is where the saved time really adds value to sellers.

The decision matrix is fairly straightforward. If you have clear visibility of how to deploy money from an immediate transaction, it makes sense to work with us as an investor, with us buying the home with a large advance payment, and underwriting the entire risk of the sale.

If you do not, however, and would rather maximise the value you make through the sale, it makes sense to work with us as a service provider. In this case, of course, there shall not be a significant advance payout, but we should be in a position to practically guarantee an exit at the earliest, and that too at a premium.

While it is indeed true that our founder’s family traditionally was in the real estate space, he grew to be more of a technology friendly entrepreneur than a player in real estate per se. COVID presented a time to reflect. A thought that resonated was applications of technology in real estate to make people’s lives easier. Studying the problem of selling homes highlighted that secondary home sales were exceedingly disorganised, and people took almost 8-9 months to sell their homes in Bengaluru. Spot buying seemed attractive to bring liquidity to a traditionally illiquid space. Value addition and sales seemed to be validated in multiple global markets, prompting the thought to set up an India focused business in this space.

Selling to Ivy homes allows you to complete the sale in a very short period of time. Traditionally, it takes 6 months to 1.5 years to complete the sale of your property. At Ivy homes, we complete the transaction within 2-3 weeks. We are able to do this by valuing your property using proprietary valuation tool and using that to make a quick offer on your property.

It is simple. We first register an agreement to sell with you, through which we take the rights to sell, renovate and access the home from you. At this point, the home is in a vacant condition, and documents and one set of keys to the home exchange hands and come to us. While legal title has not been transferred to us at this stage, we practically start behaving like owners from the next day, paying bills related to the home. Right after, we renovate and locate a buyer. Once the end buyer is in picture, we proceed to have the Sale Deed registered, which is when the balance payment is received at your end. The Sale Deed is tripartite in nature - you come in as the Seller, title still being in your name, the purchaser we aligned becomes the Purchaser, and we come in as the Confirming Party, pursuant to the Agreement to Sell we signed with you.

We use proprietary algorithms built on top of existing property transaction data to estimate the value of your home. We have transaction data for over 2.5Mn property transactions which we combine with 50+ features for a particular property to estimate the value. We aim to make the process of selling a home simple, transparent and convenient.

When we help to sell also, we sign a significantly high minimum guaranteed value on paper, with the only reason being we predicate that value on complete renovation being executed and us investing in the flat. We exclusively market and turn the home around in record time.

That is still simpler. In that scenario, all we do is enter into an MoU with you initially, at which point we pay you a refundable deposit of INR 1 lac. Beyond this, we invest, on your behalf, a fixed sum towards refurbishment of the home, packaging it well to unlock a premium. We take rights to sell the home exclusively for a period of 6 months, giving us the confidence to invest the money necessary to close the transaction out at the earliest. In this model, we commit a Minimum Guaranteed amount we shall charge from an end purchaser. The economics are then simple - we charge you a fee for the sale, and split the profits generated above the threshold value.

Ivy Homes started primarily from Whitefield. We picked a small market initially, just for validation, based on a hypothesis that there was enough demand and supply to sustain. Based on initially positive feedback, we expanded over time to the whole of Bangalore. We’ve currently transacted on over 250+ properties across the city and counting, and expect to become the platform of choice catering to ready to move in homes on either side in the years to come.

That’s a simplistic view. In reality, it is extremely different. We insist the home is vacant when we start working with you. We invest in making the home better, our biggest differentiator from any Channel Partner. Not only this, working with us is practically the same as working with 500+ Channel Partners. We practically give you and end to end managed solution, without you having to even deal with the end purchaser - site visits, negotiation, paperwork, registration, closure - everything is managed.

An offer is the price and conditions at which we guarantee to purchase your apartment. We present this offer after we do a physical inspection of your property.

Sales practically boils down to two things - packaging and distribution. We have broken both of these aspects down to a science at this point. What we realise is that most resale inventory moves slower on two counts - selling in as-is where-is condition, and lack of obvious legal clarity. We buy apartments in their as-is where-is condition, to make life easy for the average seller. We know exactly what minimal investments to make subsequently to sort out the civil work in the home, primarily around plumbing, electrical, carpentry and masonry work. Once the home is picture perfect and legally clear (we run checks on the entire title prior to the point of purchase), we are in a position to offer prospective buyers a legally clean home which is in perfect condition, set up in a buzzing community. This is what helps us sell at a premium.